Municipal Gas Co. v. City of Sherman

89 S.W.2d 436
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 23, 1935
DocketNo. 11778.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 89 S.W.2d 436 (Municipal Gas Co. v. City of Sherman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Municipal Gas Co. v. City of Sherman, 89 S.W.2d 436 (Tex. Ct. App. 1935).

Opinion

BOND, Justice.

This suit was brought by the city of Sherman, a home rule city, operating under the provisions of section 5, article 11, of the Constitution of Texas, and article 1165 et seq., Revised Statutes of Texas. The purpose of the suit is for the collection of statutory penalties provided for in article 1122, for alleged willful failure and refusal by appellant to file with it the reports required by article 1121, during the years 1931, 1932, and 1933. The suit is grounded entirely on the aforesaid statutes.

*437 Article 1121 provides:

“Any such company, corporation or person who may be engaged in furnishing to the inhabitants of any such city or town any water, light, gas or sewerage service, shall, on or before the first day of March •of each year, file with the mayor of such city or town a written report sworn to by the manager, secretary or president of such corporation, by a member of such company, and by any such person, which shall show:
“1. The amount of any lien or mortgage upon the properties composing such plant;
“2. All other indebtedness pertaining to such enterprise and the consideration therefor;
• “3. The actual cost of the visible physical properties, date when installed and the present value thereof, and herein the lands, machinery, buildings, pipes, poles, circuits, mains shall each be treated separately;
“4. The annual cost of operating such plant, showing separate items, the amount paid for actual salaries, amount paid for labor of all kinds, fixed charges, including interest, taxes and insurance, giving each separately, amount paid for fuel, for extension and repairs, giving each separately, and particularizing the extension and repairs the cost of maintenance, amount paid for damages, claim or suits for damages, identifying each claim or suit, amount paid for miscellaneous expenses, and, if any machinery or equipment is abandoned, worn out or its use discontinued within the preceding year, the same shall be stated, the original cost, and the present value thereof shall be given;
“5. The report shall give the gross earnings from any such plant, including revenues from every source whatever, stating items separately, amount received by each department.”

Article 1122 provides: “Any such corporation, or any member of such company, or any.such person mentioned in this chapter, who shall for thirty days wilfully refuse or fail to report in the manner provided by this chapter, shall forfeit and pay to any such city or town the sum of one hundred dollars per day for each and every day during which it shall continue in default; or, if any such corporation, or company, or person, shall file any report, knowing that the same does not truly report the facts about the matters mentioned -therein, it shall forfeit and pay to such city or town the sum of two hundred- and fifty dollars for each such wilfully false report. Such forfeitures and1 penalties shall be recovered at the suit of such city or town brought in the county where such city or town is located.”

The judgment appealed from is for $80,-400. It was rendered in favor of the ap-pellee and against the appellant, in pursuance to a jury’s verdict to the effect that the appellant, on or before March 1, 1931, 1932, and 1933, and 30. days thereafter respectively, willfully refused or failed to file sworn reports in the manner required by article 1121, in that the reports filed did not give all of the information called for in subdivisions 3 and 4 of said article, that the appellant did not in good faith believe that it was complying with the provisions of the article, when it filed the reports with the appellee, and that the appellant continued in default for 804 days of the 3 years mentioned.

The appellant makes the contention that articles 1121 and 1122, supra, on which the suit is grounded, are not applicable to the city of Sherman, that the city of Sherman is not a city incorporated under the general laws of the state of Texas within the contemplation of the statute, and that said articles are, by their own terms, general laws, applicable to cities and towns in¿ corporated under the provisions of title 28, Revised Statutes of 1925, and not to cities and towns known as home rule cities, incorporated under the provisions of section 5, article 11, of the Texas Constitution, and the enabling act, article 1165 et seq. of the Revised Civil Statutes of 1925.

Our Constitution and statutes each provide for incorporation by cities of a designated class, according to, and depending upon, the expressed will of the people to be affected. Article 11, section 4, of the Constitution, declares: “Cities and towns having a population of five thousand of less may be chartered alone- by general law”; and section 5 of article 11, the home rule provision, in part declares: “Cities having more than five thousand (5000) inhabitants may, by a majority vote of the qualified voters of said city, at an election held for that purpose, adopt or amend their charters, subject to suc-h limitations as may be prescribed by the Legislature, and providing that no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the *438 general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State.” The enabling act, article 1165 et seq., carrying into effect section 5, article 11, authorizes the class cities of more than 5,000 inhabitants to determine for themselves whether they shall be incorporated as a home rule city and be subject to the duties and liabilities incident to such corporation, as prescribed by the laws relating thereto.

It was clearly the purpose of the constitutional amendment (article 11, § 5) and the enabling act (article 1165 et seq.), passed by the Legislature soon after- the adoption of the amendment, to bestow upon all cities falling under the home rule amendment “full power of local self-government not inconsistent with the Constitution and statute,” and to gi'ant to home rule cities full power to do by their charter and ordinances, so long as same are not in violation of the Constitution or general laws of the state, all things which the Legislature could theretofore have granted to them. The Legislature was limited to enacting statutes governing cities, towns, and villages with 5,000 inhabitants or less, incorporated under the general laws of the state; and, when the"population exceeded 5,000 inhabitants, and chartered under the home rule amendment to the Constitution, the rights and powers of such cities are not attended by the pleasure or will of the Legislature, and their corporate rights and powers are not intended to be defined alone by legislative acts.

Articles 1121 and 1122 were enacted in 1907. The original act embraced what is now articles 1119, 1120, 1121, 1122, and 1123, Revised Statutes of 1925, and, .with the exception of an amendment to article 1119, by the Forty-Second Legislature, c.- 226, § 1, which was before this court, in the case of City of Farmersville v. Texas-Louisiana Power Co. et al., 55 S. W.(2d) 195, and the Commission of Appeals, in Texas-Louisiana Power Co. v. City of Farmersville, 67 S.W.(2d) 235, the entire act is now as it was then.

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Bluebook (online)
89 S.W.2d 436, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/municipal-gas-co-v-city-of-sherman-texapp-1935.